Letters From God: to the Church in Sardis

Sardis: Revelation 3:1-6

We have been through four of the letters to the seven churches in Asia as found in Revelation 2 and 3, and today we continue with Sardis. Before we get to the letter, a little about the city of Sardis. Sardis was a city of wealth and fame. They were the first to make gold and silver coins, as gold was mined there. They claimed
to be the first to discover the art of dyeing wool.
                     
So they were wealthy. They faced the opposite trouble as the church in Smyrna, who was told, “I know your poverty, but you are rich.” In Smyrna, as is often the case here, there were money issues. The church didn’t have much money, but what they had was more important spiritually. So much that in spite of their lack of monetary wealth, God considered them rich. But this wasn’t the case for the church in Sardis. They were comfortable. They lived in a place where it was OK to be Christian; they didn’t face persecution from the outside, and they were free from heresy or false teaching on the inside. It would seem like the perfect church.

I remember being moved from one church to another, and I met with the previous pastor who was retiring. He was excited to tell me about all the money the church had, and the plans for a new building. But what he didn’t tell me was that the church was stuck and was in the midst of its own civil war. He didn’t tell me that the leader of the food pantry was mean and nasty. He didn’t tell me that one of the leaders was sowing seeds of discontent and adultery. He was just excited that they had money.

Sardis was even worse. In the rest of the letters to the churches, they all start out with a compliment. You’re doing great here, but here is where you’re not doing so well. But in this letter, it starts out: I know your deeds. You have a reputation for being alive, but you’re dead. One church I served told me they had been lulled to sleep. But they weren’t dead. Just sleeping. But I have been in dead churches. There are dead churches that look dead. One church I know of  had dwindled down from being the largest church in town to being unable to pay their bills. They hadn’t seen a profession of faith or baptism in years. They were still hurt over a church split that had happened 20 years before. And they were extremely angry when the district superintendent closed the church. But they were a dead church.

But while those are the obviously dead churches, Sardis doesn’t look like that. I’m sure Sardis had the best building in town. They might have been full every week. But I’ve seen churches that are full but they’re dead. When Jesus is never even mentioned in a church service, you might wonder if you’re in a dead church. When the church is all caught up in cultural issues but hasn’t seen a single person accept Jesus as savior, they might be dead. When an attitude of “do whatever you want to” is fostered in the church, it might be dead.

Even if it looks alive. In Mark 11, Jesus and his disciples encounter a fig tree in leaf, but it had no fruit. Jesus cursed the tree, and it withered. And many churches or professing Christians have leaves – we look the part – but no fruit. The Bible tells us that we will be known by our fruit. The church in Sardis had no fruit. That’s what was supposed to differentiate a living church from a dead church.

Are we a living church, or are we, too, dead? What is our fruit?

There is good news, though. We see in this passage that the church in Sardis has been proclaimed dead, but we also see that they have been given commands. You wouldn’t think someone who is dead could respond to a command, but this is the joy of following Christ; he is a God of second chances.

Although the church in Sardis has been pronounced dead, it still had the possibility of restoration to life.[1] Christ, who knows their deeds, has not found any of them carried out fully. They started right, but then they gave up to accommodate the pagan culture around them. Their hearts were lacking, and without the right heart, nothing they could do is enough. If your heart is wrong, no amount of good works is enough. The church in Sardis had built a name for themselves in the community, but in God’s eyes, they hadn’t measured up.

So in verses 2-3, he tells the church to: Be watchful. Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent.

I found the history very interesting here. The first command, to be watchful, would carry special weight in Sardis. Twice in its history the acropolis had fallen to the enemy due to a lack of vigilance on the part of the defenders. In 549 b.c. Cyrus captured the acropolis by deploying a climber to work his way up a crevice on one of the nearly perpendicular walls of the mountain fortress. Late in the third century the city was again captured in the same way. A Cretan by the name of Lagoras discovered a vulnerable point and with a band of fifteen men made a daring climb, opened the gates from within, and allowed the armies of Antiochus the Great to overpower them. To consider oneself secure and fail to remain alert is to court disaster,[2] and this is a main theme throughout the Bible and especially Revelation.

So they are to be watchful. Watch out.

They are also told to strengthen what remains. Perhaps they started with good works and they are being commanded to complete them. But the context is that they are to remember what they’ve been taught – remember why they exist as a church in the first place. Why are they there at all? What are the remedial, foundational teachings of the church? What are their key beliefs?

Once they go back and remember why they exist, and what they’re supposed to be doing then the next command is clear; do what you’re supposed to be doing!

And the last command is repent! This is illustrated in 2 Kings 22, where Hilkiah the High Priest found the book of the Law in the Temple. King Josiah tore his robes in anguish and inquired of the Lord. Then the people gathered together and renewed the covenant with God. King Josiah destroyed the places where the people worshiped other gods and got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all detestable things, and the people finally celebrated the Passover, which hadn’t been done in years. Repenting means stopping what you are doing, turning 180 degrees around, and going in the opposite direction. It’s not enough just to quit doing wrong, but instead, do what’s right.

And so, if the believers in Sardis are willing to do this, if they become overcomers, Christ promises that he will acknowledge their names before his Father and the angels. This is a clear reflection of Matthew 10:32, where Jesus says, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.” Faithfulness in trial now is to be rewarded beyond measure in the life to come.[3]



[1] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 94). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[2] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (pp. 93–94). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[3] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 97). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

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